Class Size

The government news release is framed as a challenge for elementary students in their math classes. It is headlined: "Report Shows Progress on Class Sizes". The lead sentence in the release reads: "The first-ever report on class sizes in B.C. public schools shows that nearly nine out of 10 classrooms have 30 or fewer students …" Students, the question is how can one "show progress" when there is only one observation? Doesn't it take at least two points to make a line, hence a trend that would show progress, or not?

Of course, teachers, students and parents know that prior to Bill 28 (2002), class size and composition were regulated by collective agreement. While there were some variations between school boards, this essentially meant that class size in grades 4 to 12 could not exceed 30, and downward adjustments had to occur if there were more than two special needs students in a class.

Oversized Classes The report released by the Campbell government on February 9th admitted that BC has 9,253 classes with more than 30 students, and 2,909 with more than 32 students. The report also indicated that 44,965 classes, out of 67,499, included at least one special needs student, and that 3,598 classes have six or more special needs students. Of course, the government news release referred to how many classes had five or fewer special needs students and 32 or fewer students, but anyone who can do arithmetic can see what the government is glossing over: over 93,000 BC students are in classes with more than 32 students, before adjusting for special needs. That wouldn't have been allowed prior to the Campbell government breaking the teachers' collective agreement.

Parents and teachers throughout BC should check the government website to see the class size and composition information for their school. The government news release simply refers people to Achieve BC, but that is not an easy site to navigate. The information on classes by school district or by specific schools can be found at http://www.achievebc.ca/spt/searchform.html by entering the name of the school or school district and then clicking on "school report", "district report" or "provincial report" under the heading "demographics". Parents and teachers should report any errors they see in the reports, and they should ask themselves whether the class size and composition is better or worse than it was before the Campbell government implemented the Public Education Flexibility and Choice Act which gave school boards the ability to increase grade 4 - 12 class size while ignoring class composition.